{"id":248586,"date":"2021-07-08T12:37:19","date_gmt":"2021-07-08T17:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=248586"},"modified":"2021-07-07T17:30:06","modified_gmt":"2021-07-07T22:30:06","slug":"northern-ireland-mother-charity-children-down-syndrome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/northern-ireland-mother-charity-children-down-syndrome\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland mother starts charity to help new parents of children with Down syndrome"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After Clare Cushenan’s daughter, Aoife, was born with Down syndrome in 2013, she felt lost as she tried to navigate this new territory. After realizing that so much of the information she had received was ultimately unhelpful, Cushenan decided to do something so that other moms in her shoes would be able to approach the birth of their children with a more positive outlook.<\/p>\n

Cushenan, of Northern Ireland, founded Special Delivery NI last year as a way to provide support to those new mothers of children who receive a Down syndrome diagnosis.<\/p>\n

Cushenan told Irish News<\/a> that while intentions were good, she received little to no support when Aoife was born. She explained that the hospital gave her a few pamphlets and not much else.<\/p>\n

“They had loads of smiling adults with Down’s syndrome and it listed all the issues that people with the syndrome might face, so it was a worst-case scenario,” she said of the pamphlets. “But you’ve just had this wee baby and you’re looking at these adults, seeing way too far into the future, having to worry about what might happen.<\/p>\n

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